The present disclosure is related to computer software and more specifically to user interface computer software.
To display different sets of information, some computer software displays the different sets of information in different panels on the display screen, with one panel per set of information. However, there may be more panels of information available than some users may wish to display, and users may wish to customize the order in which the panels are displayed in order to suit each user's needs. It can therefore be desirable to allow users to select which sets of information will be displayed in panels, and to allow the users to rearrange the order of the panels.
One user interface that could be used to allow users to select which information is displayed and the order in which it is displayed in panels would be to present a list of titles of the information and a text box into which the user could enter a number. The user would only enter numbers in the text box corresponding to titles corresponding to information the user wanted to see displayed in panels. The number would correspond to the order in which the panels were displayed. When the user clicked an “accept” or “OK” button, the information would be displayed according to the numbers in the user interface. If five panels were displayed, they would be numbered 1-5 on the user interface. If the user entered a “3” into an additional text box, and left the others where they were, panels 3-5 would be renumbered 4-6 and panels 1-6 would be instantly displayed in the order specified.
Although the above user interface could be used to select and position panels displaying sets of information from a larger number of sets of information, it suffers from various drawbacks. The first is, because the panels change in response to an “accept” or “OK” button, the panels suffer from a lack of continuity of display. The panels abruptly change positions when the user clicks the button, and so the user is required to take some time to reorient where the various sets of information have been redisplayed on the display screen. Additionally, such a user interface does not allow the user to visualize what the result will look like before the user completes making a selection. Furthermore, the use of the user interface control may not be intuitive; the user may be required to read instructions to use the control.